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I think it's important to note that 1) The AT protocol is nowhere near complete, and as far as I can tell account portability is not actually implemented yet an

I think it's important to note that 1) The AT protocol is nowhere near complete, and as far as I can tell account portability is not actually implemented yet and 2) There are no third party sites that use AT! Even if account portability existed, there's nowhere to go. But if account portability existed and worked, imagine this scenario: Larry Ellison wakes up one day and decides that Elon is having so much fun that he wants a social media site too. The minute the sale is announced, all the account portability APIs are disabled, and the website switches to a hard login wall. They start aggressively throttling and banning users that look like scrapers. They send a DMCA takedown to archive.org, who obliges and removes the wayback copies. They disable viewing followers and following so you can't even get your graph out. Now what? The problem of trusting someone else to host your social media page is that you have to trust them. If your answer is "Jack wouldn't sell the company", then I can't help but note that he sure sold Twitter to Elon. If your other answer is "Larry Ellison would never do something unethical and customer-hostile" then uh...

Zetice 3y ago
That would have to happen soon, and if it did, you'd be right. The vision of a decentralized social web would die again, and one billionaire would make another even richer. Some moaning would be had on the Internet, but the world would continue to spin. But, if the AT protocol even makes it another ~6 months without that happening, it will become impossible. You won't need to "trust" anyone to host anything, and if you want you'll be able to take your data and go somewhere else. That's the vision, and that's so far exactly what the folks at BlueSky have been building. So no, the answer isn't "Larry and Jack wouldn't do those things" the answer is, "They'll have to act very quickly and in ways that are completely out of character for them, not to mention the staff at BlueSky would have to all sell their souls which is also completely out of character for them as well." But yeah, if you're a cynic I guess everything is on the table.

Zetice 3y ago

That would have to happen soon, and if it did, you'd be right. The vision of a decentralized social web would die again, and one billionaire would make another even richer. Some moaning would be had on the Internet, but the world would continue to spin. But, if the AT protocol even makes it another ~6 months without that happening, it will become impossible. You won't need to "trust" anyone to host anything, and if you want you'll be able to take your data and go somewhere else. That's the vision, and that's so far exactly what the folks at BlueSky have been building. So no, the answer isn't "Larry and Jack wouldn't do those things" the answer is, "They'll have to act very quickly and in ways that are completely out of character for them, not to mention the staff at BlueSky would have to all sell their souls which is also completely out of character for them as well." But yeah, if you're a cynic I guess everything is on the table.